NEW DELHI (Commodity Online): India will utilise the huge collection of germplasm of lentils (masoor dal), chickpeas (gram) and grasspea (Kulthi) available with Syria-based International Centre for Agricultural Research in Dry Areas (ICARDA)to increase pules yield especially in dry areas. Recently, ICARDA established its South Asia Regional Program in India and China during 12-14 December 2009, at NASC Complex here. Besides pulses the colloborate programme will also focus on wheat, Barley and livestock.

At a meeting on enhancing food and nutritional security in South Asia and China, Dr Mangala Rai, Secretary of Department of Agricultural Research and Education, Director General of Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) said that ICARDA's huge germplasm collection of major pulses varieties would help India to boost yields in dry areas.

“India grows pulses in about 22.5 million hectare and 80 per cent is in dry areas. There is an immense potential to increase masoor dal output in Bihar, Orissa and West Bengal,” pulses expert Mr Masood Ali said.

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Scientists from Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, China, India, Nepal, Pakistan and ICARDA H. Q, Syria deliberated for two days on various aspects and develop programme in networking-mode for future implementation.

Dr Kamel Shideed, ADG-ICC, ICARDA; Dr J S Samra, Chief Executive Officer, National Rainfed Agriculture Authority; Dr R Paroda, Executive Secretary, APAARI; and Dr Ashutosh Sarker, Regional Coordinator, ICARDA were also present there.
The aim of the meeting is to discuss on-going and future collaborative research issues, develop interaction among participating countries and networking on common research agenda, etc.

It becomes all the more important in light of global warming where heat tolerant varieties with less water requirement is going to be our major requirement. The joint meeting of this nature would also focus on Barley improvement for high yielding malt, food and feed in various agro-ecologies; resource use efficiency and policy options improving livelihood of rural communities of South Asia and China and integrating crop–livestock system and rangeland management.

Dry areas of the developing world occupy some 3 billion ha. (about 19% of total global land area) and are home to one-third of the global population-over 1.7 billion people. About 16% of the world population lives in chronic poverty, particularly in the marginalized rain-fed areas. The decline in soil fertility, changes in water-table depth rising salinity will further aggravate the poverty and livelihood in this region

Among a dozen of food legumes cultivated in the world, the International Center for Agricultural Research in the Dry areas (ICARDA) has world mandate for the improvement of lentil, faba bean, Kabuli chickpea and grasspea. For the last three decades, the Center is collaborating with more than 40 countries of the developing and the developed world for their research and development. It has the largest collection of germplasm accessions(lentil-11,282, faba bean-9110, kabuli chickpea-12,473 and grasspea-1653 ) comprising of both wilds and cultigens, which is the key building block to genetic enhancement of these crops. The germplasm and the breeding lines developed through cross-breeding at ICARDA are shared with the national programs.

Food legumes are commonly known as “Poor Man’s Meat” because of their high protein content (17-35%), low price and thus have widespread access to the poor. In general, the poorer section of the society in many countries of Asia and Africa cannot afford animal products for nutritional requirements because of high price. Lack of farmer’s participation in technology and variety development is one of the major lacunas in genetic enhancement program of these crops. This approach is one of the key vehicles for farmer-to farmer seed diffusion system.

An integrated, demand-driven, people-oriented approach to ensure rural Rain-fed populations food and nutritional security with livelihood options conserving their natural resources in the face of climate change and globalization is most essential to offer new avenues and opportunities to promote food and nutritional security and peace in the developing world. Lentil, Chickpea(more importantly Kabuli chickpea), Faba bean, Grasspea and Barley appears to be more promising options for rain-fed farmers to improve the farmers’ income, nutrition quality, livelihoods and soil fertility

ICARDA is devoted to research in collaboration with national partners, and its research portfolio is built on four research programs viz.:(i)Biodiversity and integrated Gene Management (BIGM). Under this program, crop improvement research is being carried out on barley, lentil, faba bean, kabuli chickpea, grasspea and Wheat for CWANA region (ii) Integrated Water and Land Management Program (IWLM) (iii)Diversification and Sustainable Intensification of Production Systems (DSIPS) (iv) Social, Economic and Policy Research (SEPR).

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